If you catch the reference to a different show in here, I'll be very impressed

Of all the people John thought he'd share a cab with this week, Jim Moriarty was probably the last on the list. He'd called for it just after he'd come back downstairs freshly dressed in a suit and looking a lot more like the man John remembered than the drunk he'd seen the previous night, and after a wait in tense, awkward silence neither of them had tried to fill, they were on their way back to the station.

John glanced at Moriarty's reflection in the window as they sat in silence. A minute ago he'd been texting, John didn't know who, but now he was silent again, staring down at his own shoes with apparent concentration where John was gazing aimlessly out of the window. He looked shattered, exhausted and in pieces, but somehow managed to keep himself together. God knew he was doing so much better than John had been in the first few days after Sherlock's 'death', but John suspected that was because whatever Moriarty was thinking was going on entirely in his head, not allowed to reach the outside.

"What would you have done?" John said, not looking away from the window. He saw Moriarty look up out of the corner of his eye.

"What?"

"What would you have done? If I'd known about Sherlock."

"Nothing good."

John turned to face him just as Moriarty let a knife slide down into his palm from inside his sleeve.

"Stabbed me?"

A forced excuse for a smirk tried to form on his lips before he gave up and sighed. "Eventually."

John narrowed his eyes. "Just that from the guy who used /bomb vests/ just to get Sherlock's attention?"

"I'm not trying to get his attention now. Not until I know what's going on."

"You're going back to London?"

Moriarty looked at him with the expression of someone desperately trying to hold back a sarcastic comment (something Sherlock had never been able to do). He nodded instead.

"I have a job to do." He said, voice low but overflowing with conviction, his gaze moving back to the floor of the taxi.

"You could just get out before he finds you." John knew as well as Moriarty did that that was a stupid response.

He raised an eyebrow. "Would you have just left if you'd known I was alive?"

It was John's turn to bite back a sarcastic response. He just shot Moriarty a glare. The only reason John hadn't killed him yet was that he was beginning to realise that most of this wasn't even Moriarty's fault; all the pain, the anger, the endless police interviews and press on his front step, that was all Sherlock. He could have come forward at any point but he'd left John there in the darkness, alone and clinging to the sharp edges of his shattered life for the second time in a few short years. John had been stupid to think he'd ever really meant anything. At least Jim had gone this long without lying to him. John found it almost funny, in a dark sort of way; the only times Moriarty lied to John was when he'd been lying to Sherlock. He'd been perfectly honest about his intentions to John's face, even if they were generally homicidal. Sherlock had lied to him constantly about almost everything.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I haven't told you anything, you worked it out for yourself."

The cab pulled over before John could reply. The driver looked like he was seriously considering just getting the hell out of there, and John wouldn't blame him, but Moriarty leant forward and passed him a handful of notes from inside his jacket.

"Keep the change," he said, getting out of the cab and walking towards the station doors, not waiting for John to get out after him.

John had to jog to catch up with Moriarty's fast steps as he walked through the station towards the information boards and sales desks.

"How much did you give him?"

"Hundred and twenty."

"The fare was fifteen!"

"And before I gave him that, he was considering going to the police about our little chat in the back of his car," he rolled his eyes. "I didn't think you'd approve of me killing a random taxi driver with a wife and two kids."

"How- actually, I don't even want to know what goes through your mind."

"Why, scared it would be too much like Sherly's?" He seemed to slip into that old tone of playful threat far too easily, and John had to wonder if everything earlier was just a lie, if he was just being set up. He shouldn't have underestimated Moriarty, no matter how vulnerable or drunk he'd seemed to be.

Instead of threatening him or doing anything to give him any more clues, though, he stopped walking suddenly, blinked and rubbed his temples.

His voice was lower when he spoke again. "I'd almost forgotten what that felt like."

"What?"

He just frowned and started walking towards the counters again, managing some polite conversation with the middle aged woman at the desk but not smiling or using that tone again.

"The next train is in ten minutes. Did you have any plans for a return journey?"

John shook his head. "I only bought a single-"

Moriarty narrowed his eyes. "You weren't planning on coming back."

"I was-"

"Consciously you thought you were. Unconsciously you were hoping I'd murder you. Maybe kill me then end your own life. Johnny, Johnny," he shook his head almost pityingly. "You can survive without him, you know. You did for your whole life before him."

Moriarty didn't understand. He'd always seen Sherlock as just a puzzle, another problem to crack, not as the amazing light in the darkness John had seen when they found each other in that room in St Bart's four years ago. "How would you know anything about that? You never had anyone-"

"I was married, John. I know what love is, and what you had wasn't it."

John looked at him, raising his eyebrows incredulously and for once in his life forgetting to protest his love for Sherlock. "What, you and Moran? Please."

"I'm not having this conversation. Not here and not with you."

Moriarty started walking towards the entrance to the platform, not replying until John caught up with him and sat down on the freezing cold metal seat next to him.

Moriarty stared at the tracks, not turning to face John when he started speaking. "You don't believe I could care."

It was a statement, not a question, but John shook his head anyway.

"I'm not the monster you think I am. I might have been once, but reality caught up with me."

Reality. That was rich. This was coming from a man who'd been living under a false identity for two years while John had to face the consequences of his own actions and Sherlock's. He shot Moriarty an incredulous look.

"I was living in a fairytale, and they don't end with the villain getting a husband, a house in the suburbs and some serious psychiatric help. They end with me in the ground and you and Sherlock riding into the sunset. I was fine with that for a while. Then things with Seb got serious, and I couldn't play that role any more," he met John's gaze with eyes like black holes. "This is real life, not a fairytale, John; there are no heroes or villains. Just people, doing the best they can."

"And that day?"

"It was supposed to be a way out for both of us. I knew I'd live, I thought he'd work something out. It looked like he didn't. As long as I got away, I didn't care," Moriarty finally looked him in the eyes. "Then he killed Seb. I would have just let him get on with his life if he'd come back any time in the last two years but he shot my husband in cold blood, and I won't let him get away with that."

The train pulled into the station and Moriarty stood up without another word, heading for the doors. John followed him, once again, not quite sure what his other options were.